Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

I haven't done anything this week on any projects. What with all the family and festivities.

End of the World

I guess it really didn't happen...

Anyway, this past week I went ahead and started production on Panic! Panic! even though I haven't finished the design document. But, I feel I have enough started and planned out to start. Here's a first screenshot:

You may or may not notice the differences, but they're there. The color change buttons are bigger and are now transparent to see the action behind them. The enemies designs are also slightly different to incorporate an eye. Also, the targeting line has been replaced with a primitive triangle as opposed to a stretched sprite. This will help, hopefully, with some of the speed issues.

Now here's a shot of it in action on an actual Android phone:

It's not the best picture demonstrating this, but it's effective in showing that it currently works.

That's all for now.

More Work

This past week has been filled mostly with winding down from the last semester. I've had the chance to catch up on playing some games and watching T.V. These were pleasures that I had not been able to partake of for some time.

As for work on Panic! Panic!, I have done some more writing on the design document, as well as done some brainstorming for enemies and their tactics. I've also done the first draft of the storyboard for the intro:

There isn't much to it, I know. However, Panic! Panic! isn't motivated by plot or story. In fact, in the original beta, there wasn't a story to speak of. After some consideration, I thought it would be important to have at least a little plot, hence the intro.

I've done a few other things, like some of the graphics. Some of the sprites I did before I am satisfied with. There are others that I feel that needed some fine tuning, or a complete redo. Here's what I've done with the ship:

The original is on the left, the new is on the right. I've made it slightly more simple and used a different palette. I like the simplicity of the right, but I might have to change the colors. I don't know, if you (the reader, if any) have suggestions or comments about this or anything so far, make them.

Finals

As you may or may not know, I am a full-time student. As a result, I have been taking finals and working on final projects. So, I haven't had the time this week to work on any of my game projects. This next week should be better, and I hope to get a lot of work done. I hope to get some more results soon!

S.D.4 Steampunk

I haven't done much else on the design document for Panic! Panic! recently. Although, I have set aside some time today to work on it. It's crazy how when I want to work on it, I don't have time and when I have time, I don't want to work on it. However, I am planning to at least start production on it sometime during the Christmas break.

This past week, due in large part to my brother, I have been working on S.D.4 Steampunk. He has been giving several idea submissions to that project, so I haven't had to put as much work into it. I would say that he's contributed to more than half of the games mechanics and structure. He's definitely getting a co-author credit for that.

For those of you who don't know, S.D.4 is a pen and paper RPG system that I have been developing for over a year now. It's an acronym for Simple Dice 4-Sided, meaning that it's d4 based system and is meant to be a really simple role-playing game. I mostly wanted to create a role-playing system that was simple and quick, and that required fewer rules to remember.

The playtests have been positive, but it's far from finished, like my many other projects.